* * * *
Exhausted and terrified, Max galloped towards the house, gruffly yelling his brother’s name. The second Silas opened the doors, he came running, immediately aware that something was terribly wrong.
Max handed a barely conscious Audrey to his younger brother as he dismounted from his horse. Ace was nowhere to be found. Her limp body splayed across Silas’ arms, Max looked down at his little brother with terror in his heart.
“What the hell happened to her?” Silas asked, his eyes wide with panic.
“I found her on the ground, just above the ridge. I followed the hoof prints to find her, but the stallion's gone. She was on the ground, delirious. Doesn't help that it's damn near ninety degrees out. She might have been lying there for an hour before I got to her.”
The familiar sweater he’d lent her was torn to shreds, barely covering her nude, battered torso. Dirt smeared the fine lines of her face, and her hair was disheveled.
“Looks like Ace got spooked, threw her to the ground and trampled her,” Max said as he examined the doll-like body in Silas’ arms.
“Let's get her to the bed. Have Mason phone Dr. Kingston immediately,” his brother finally replied, clearly in shock.
“I'm not leaving her side, Silas. You tell Mason about this damn disaster. You let this happen to her, now you fix it.”
Max and Silas locked eyes for one heated moment, Max insistently taking their injured lover in his arms. If it hadn't been for the state Audrey was in, they would have most certainly come to blows that very moment.
* * * *
Max walked away from Silas in a heated fury. A flood of guilt and anger flowed over Silas the second he was alone.
This was all far too reminiscent of his most dreaded flashback, the morning that Max called to tell him of the fire at The Arches. This time, though, if anything happened to their lover, it would be Silas to blame. How could he have let her go in such a state of anger and then failed to follow? Could he live with the kind of guilt his brother had been forced to bear after Jackie’s death?
He ran into the house behind Max and Audrey, the drive to fix this terrible mistake exploding inside of him, supplanting his rage from the past.
“Mason!” he roared fiercely into the intercom. “Call the doctor immediately. Audrey's been thrown from a horse.”
“My goodness,” Mason immediately responded. “Right away, sir. Please let me know what I might do to make Miss Audrey more comfortable.”
Silas sprang into action as he opened up the master bedroom for her, throwing back the bedding before Max gently placed her down on the mattress. He watched helplessly as his older brother carefully tore off her tattered sweater, stripping and examining her for any deep wounds or broken bones with the care of a surgeon.
Mason arrived in the room silently, carrying a tray of first aid supplies, wet cloths and a cold jug of ice water. Silas poured the liquid into a tall glass and sat next to her. She murmured as he placed a cool cloth on her forehead, her eyes fluttering open as she took in her surroundings.
“You need to drink this, sweetheart,” Silas said as he carefully propped her head up and held the glass to her mouth. She silently nodded and weakly swallowed two mouthfuls before collapsing back on the bed, her eyes fluttering shut.
Max looked at him and Mason, a clear sound of relief ringing in his voice. “I think she’s going to be all right. There are definitely some bruised ribs, but I’m fairly sure Doc Kingston won’t find anything life threatening.”
The three of them looked at one another, the mood of the room mellowing as Audrey settled into the bed, her expression appearing more and more restful by the moment.
“I need to speak to you, Silas,” Max said with a quiet intensity. “Mason, will you do us a favor and check Miss Rousseau out of her hotel in Dallas? I’m sure she’ll want her things once she’s awake, and I want her to be comfortable here.”
“Yes, sir. Right away,” he responded, relief sounding in his voice. Mason immediately departed, and it was for the best he had gone. The poor man had witnessed many a fight between the two brothers, and always immediately intuited when it was best not to get between the two men.
Max pulled Silas forcefully up off of the bed and pushed him into the hallway with a swift, explosively strong gesture.
“I think you best tell me what happened, Silas. Why was she horseback riding alone half naked at the crack of dawn? Where were you? ” he said with in a gruff, accusatory tone.
“We got in a fight after you left for the stables. I woke up to her screaming in her sleep about someone named Sasha. She was begging him to leave her alone, and she was crying. I’ve never heard anyone sound like that before, so full of fear. But when I asked her about it, she got furious with me and told me she was going for a ride, and that she needed to be alone. She didn’t want anything to do with me and acted like I was a total stranger.”
“And you let her go, not bothering to check and see if something was wrong after hours had gone by?” Max retorted skeptically.
“When a woman as strong as Audrey says she wants to be alone, I believe her. There’s something wrong here, Max—she was like a different person this morning. There’s something huge she hasn’t told us. Whoever this Sasha character is, he or she scarred her deep down to the bone.”
“We’ll find out what happened to her in due time. For now, let’s just wait for the doctor and be with her.”
They walked back into the bedroom, the familiar space where the three of them had already shared so much together in such a short time. Max and Silas sat silently with Audrey, watching her sleep. She looked so pale and small, the sound of her shallow breath the only audible noise in the otherwise hushed room. Even in this vulnerable state, her beauty overwhelmed Silas.
She was going to be fine. She had to be.
Chapter Twelve
Audrey awoke to three pairs of eyes watching her intently, the sound of her own name ringing in her ears. As she fully regained consciousness, she became aware of the ache radiating through every part of her body. She took an assessment of the situation. Obviously something dreadful had happened to her, but what?
As her vision came into focus, she tried to speak but had trouble finding her voice. “How long has it been?” she finally asked, the quiet sound of the words catching in her throat.
“You've been asleep almost twenty hours, baby,” Silas replied, his face flooded with a combination of relief and worry.
“What happened?” she asked, trying for a moment to sit up before shooting pain spread through her ribcage.
“Miss Rousseau, my name is Doctor Grant Kingston, and I've been looking after you since yesterday. You took quite a fall from Ace, do you recall?”
The unfamiliar but kind man sat closest to her on the enormous bed, carefully examining her injuries. “You're a very lucky woman, Audrey. You have three bruised ribs, but judging from what we've gathered about your accident, it seems you could have suffered far worse. It seems everything is under control with your condition, but I'll be back tomorrow to check on your progress. I'm glad you're awake, and I look forward to working with you on a full recovery.”
She nodded weakly as the kind doctor departed from the room, leaving her alone with Max and Silas. Silence filled the room as Max and Silas flanked her on both sides, staring intently at her.
Finally breaking the weight of the quiet, Max cleared his throat to speak. “We need to know what happened, Audrey. We know you were thrown from the horse, but why?”
“And why did you run away from me like that?” Silas chimed in.
“I just needed to be alone,” she weakly answered.
“Stop hiding the truth from us, Audrey. We can handle just about anything, as long as you tell us the truth,” Max responded, his voice heavy with concern and frustration.
“If you’re not ready, we can wait. But we need to know,” Silas said softly, clearly trying to diffuse the tension of the moment.
After a long silence, the words finally began to come to her. “No, it’s all right. I don’t want to hide anything anymore. I have recurring nightmares about someone. He's a very powerful man who ran my life in Paris and made my world a living hell.”
“Who is he? A former lover? Your… husband?” Silas asked, wincing.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
Max nodded forcefully. “We must, Audrey. We must know everything about you.”
She took a deep breath and began her story. “When I was seventeen, I spent all my waking moments working as a seamstress. I still lived in the orphanage I had been forced into after my father died. Sasha had just arrived in Paris from St. Petersburg and came into the shop. It was surprising to see any gentlemen in a place such as that, but we certainly never expected a cousin of the royal family.
“He took an immediate interest in me, especially in my skill as a designer. I must have made him ten suits in the first month of knowing him, and he would sit and talk with me for hours on end while I made him whatever he wished. He paid me handsomely, loved my work, and was the first person who had ever seen something special inside me.
“Before long, though, I began to see his dark side. He would literally inspect my seams and designs with a magnified glass and once destroyed an elaborate winter coat I had spent weeks designing for him. He stood in front of me after grabbing the scissors out of my hand cutting the fabric into tiny bits as he made me watch him destroy one of the most beautiful things I had ever produced. I never allowed myself to cry when these things happened, and my stoic response only fanned the flames of his tempestuous temper.
“And yet, despite these episodes, he made me many promises and produced grandiose business schemes for me. He would take his cut as my manager, of course, but he held the keys to my greatest fantasy, a shop in the most fashionable section of Paris. I couldn't believe then that it could all be mine. He introduced me to the high society of Paris and purchased a flat for me big enough to live and sew in. It was the most luxurious thing I could ever have imagined for myself. But as my debt to him grew deeper and deeper, the wilder and more impossible his expectations of me became. He once held a knife to my throat when I failed to please him. I was his showpiece, his doll to everyone in Paris, but behind closed doors I was his slave.
“He begged me to be with him, threatened that if I wouldn't sleep with him that he would throw me out on the street. But I never bowed to his threats. I told him I didn't like men and gave him just about every excuse under the sun. But the truth was that I was terrified he would and could take it all away from me, even as I was becoming a huge success after I opened my store on Rue Cambon, right in front of the most famous hotel in Paris, the Ritz.
“In public, my life was a dream, but in private it was a nightmare. The more I overshadowed him, the more I was afraid I would never escape him. And then, one afternoon, I was reading
Vogue
and I saw the cover article about you both. I didn’t even know where Dallas was when I learned of Jacqueline’s! But it sounded so wild, and so far away. I became obsessed with the idea of Texas. It became my ultimate escape fantasy.”
Audrey paused, realizing she was lost in a sea of thoughts and had almost forgotten her audience. Both men stared at her silently, their eyes reflecting deep concern.
“It’s over now, yet it continues to haunt me,” she continued unsteadily, trying to read Max and Silas’ reaction.
“Where is he now?” Max finally replied, an obvious note of anger hanging on his breath.
“I don’t know, honestly. In Paris, I assume. Yet, I can’t help but keep looking over my shoulder, especially when something like this happens.”
Silas’ brow furrowed as he began to speak. “Audrey, I want you to tell us everything you remember before you were thrown from the horse.”
“All I remember was riding fast. I was being reckless, there’s no doubt about it. I just wanted to shut off my fears and all the emotions flooding me in the moment. I wanted so much to forget my past that when you pressed me, Silas, all I could remember was the tone in Sasha’s voice when he would threaten me. I let Ace explode into too fast a gallop, but the speed felt so good and I was overconfident about my control. The last thing I remember before the fall was the sound of a gunshot and the horse rearing up into the air. I don’t know where it came from, but it must have scared him terribly. Everything else is gone.”